


In the Time it Takes...

by Ori (magnetium)



Series: Sleepless [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-08
Updated: 2007-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetium/pseuds/Ori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little drabble that links up with Sleepless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Time it Takes...

Jed is not a man given easily to whims or flights of fancy. He has grand ideas, but he doesn't consider them to be unrealistic. Not likely, some of them, but none completely unreachable.

Which is why it is strange to him that he feels this stirring in his stomach, this pleasant, aching gnaw in his chest, every time he has a moment alone and his thoughts turn to those few dark hours spent touching skin that wasn't his to touch. It isn't his to think about, either, but as he lights a cigarette and stands out in the cold night's air, hunched over the tiny, smoking bit of light, he finds he can do nothing but. There are more important things to think about (a country to run, for Christ's sake), but he will get back to those as soon as he steps back inside.

These are not grand ideas he has now, in these minutes to himself, not beautiful, heavy things, weighted with ideals and lofty plans. These are desires that come out of him unbidden, mixing with the smoke that he exhales. He hadn't known, on that late night, in between the crisp white sheets and the homey quilt of a country bed, that he needed to make the moments last forever. If he had realized how much he would want that night to have lasted a lifetime after it had passed, he might have lingered more, taken his time. Because he knows it can never happen again. Or, if it does, it will happen a long time from now, circumstances coming together out of chance to put him alone with the man he can still smell, if he summons the memory. So even though every part of him sings out its intention to take him right back into those arms, he stays where he is, and smokes the cigarette so savagely that the lit end suddenly flares from the sharp intake of oxygen.

He can't have these kinds of thoughts inside the Oval Office, or at least he can't have them without the strain of guilt and disgust at himself. It is only outside, with no one telling him anything, or wanting his approval--only here, where no one is asking him to be the President, that he can settle into his desires like a chair before a warm fire. Unfortunately, like all good things in life, his cigarette reaches its end, and his desires have to take a backseat to all the calls he still needs to make, and the reports that lay unread on his desk. Inside, he takes a deep breath and allows himself to become the office again, and not the man. He sits down and puts on his glasses, picking up the topmost report and flipping to the first page. He reads, and absorbs, but even as he does so, the man is still inside him, and a part of him remains aware of the short distance that lays between him and another, who is no doubt writing instead of reading. Jed slips off his shoes, as he wont to do when it's late and his heels are sore, and in between paragraphs, he glances at the cigarette tin poking out of his coat pocket, wondering how soon he can step out again.


End file.
